1942. Naval Observers and TAGs.
Although the FAA had been largely free of direct RAF influence since 1939, in order to tie off some loose ends, it is appropriate to make one or two further references to naval back-seaters. The first point to make is that, almost as if to underline its independence, the Navy elected not to follow the Air Force’s lead in 1942 and it continued to employ air observers, rather than navigators, as it still does today.1
It will be recalled (see page 166) that when the Navy had introduced a flying badge for its pilots in 1939, its observers had opted to do without. Needless to say, this had been the wrong decision. By the end of 1941 demand for a badge was such that it became necessary for the issue to be raised formally, the initial case being put forward by Rear Admiral Naval Air Stations, RAdm Clement Moody.2 He acknowledged the earlier argument, that wearing a distinctive badge would identify observers as ‘specialists’, which might possibly have been seen as a disadvantage to those who were members of the Executive Branch, but, apart from being a subjective assessment, this was now of concern to only a small proportion of observers. By 1942 the vast majority of them (it was about 80%) were fully paid-up members of the Air Branch and thus primarily airmen. Furthermore, most of them were RNVR in-for-the-duration-only men who had little, or no, interest in long-term careers. But most of these young men did want to wear an appropriate badge, not least because they were now the only unbadged aviators in the entire British air services. In more practical terms there were said to have been instances of officers experiencing difficulty in establishing their bona fides as air crew when negotiating with representatives of foreign navies – and air forces.
While Moody urged that a suitable badge should be introduced, he specifically advised against a single-winged RAF-style emblem as he did not wish the FAA to be saddled with something that would ‘bear the appearance of innate instability of the RAF Observer’s badge’. He also rejected the reinstatement of the old RNAS observers badge on the grounds that it was too similar to that currently worn by naval pilots and he attached suggested designs, for both observers and air gunners.
Moody’s submission was favourably received and supported by the Director Naval Air Division whose comments on the single-winged option were:3
‘This gives an unstable effect which is unpopular and undesirable. In this connection it was learnt at the Empire Air Training Conference that the RAF are contemplating the introduction of a stable two-winged badge for their observers.’4
Several designs were considered over the next few months, including, despite these adverse observations, a single-winged option, but the final versions, which were submitted to the Palace and approved on 9 July 1942,5 were similar to the original proposals.
It only remained to make the long overdue announcement of the introduction of a badge for commissioned naval observers and it can have been no coincidence that this was done on 17 September 1942, the same day that the Air Ministry authorised its new range of air crew badges for the RAF.6 At the same time a very similar badge was authorised for rating observers and air gunners.7 In marked contrast to the RAF’s lop-sided badges, both naval badges had two wings. In a further reversal of policy, just two weeks later it was announced that naval air gunners were to have their old title of TAG, which had been withdrawn in 1935 (see page 162), reinstated. This change in terminology was antedated to 1 July 1942.8
Although few further references will be made to naval air crew, it is perhaps worth commenting on one last aspect of nautical nomenclature. Between 1924 and 1939 the operation of aeroplanes at sea had been conducted under the aegis of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force. When the Admiralty assumed responsibility for this activity, it established dedicated Air and Flying Branches, for its commissioned and non-commissioned aviation personnel respectively, but it had neglected to provide a new name for the overall organisation.9 While the Navy had initially endorsed the FAA ‘label’, it appears that, perhaps because of its air force origins, this may have been frowned upon in some quarters. In 1941 an attempt was made to minimise the use of the FAA tag, although this stopped well short of actually legislating it out of existence.10 Such a half-hearted measure failed to have much impact so, in 1946, the Admiralty ruled that the correct term was Naval Aviation and that Fleet Air Arm was no longer to be used, other than in an historical context.11 The bureaucracy dutifully adopted the new terminology but it made less impression in the Ward Room and below decks and on 20 May 1953, in a written answer to a Question in the House of Commons, the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, Cdr Sir Allan Noble, announced that the title of Fleet Air Arm had been restored to use.12
The badges authorised in September 1942for (left) commissioned RN observers and (centre) for rating observers and air gunners. Purely for interest, on the right is a prototype RAF-style single-winged badge that failed to find favour.
Seen here as a flight lieutenant in 1941, Eric Kraus, a Czech refugee, was commissioned into the RAF as a meteorologist in 1940. He had some involvement with the early Met Recce Flights in 1941 and to facilitate this he was sent on a truncated navigation course which was evidently deemed sufficient to entitle him to wear an observer’s badge.
1942-45. The introduction of Meteorological Air Observers.
Coastal Command began to form its first dedicated meteorological reconnaissance units, then of flight status, at the close of 1940. It was envisaged from the outset that it would be preferable to employ a qualified meteorologist to make informed observations and to take any necessary readings. It took a surprisingly long time to formalise these arrangements, but the creation of a Meteorological Air Observer Section within the GD Branch was eventually announced in September 1942.13 The numbers required were never large, the original estimate being for ten officers and fifty NCOs – sergeants.
Qualified meteorologists, selected for flying duties, were given a fairly cursory introduction into the world of practical aviation. To begin with, their training was to consist of: a brief stint at an ACRC; attendance at one of Manby’s two-week ground-based Air Gunners (Emergency) Courses; three weeks of navigation at Millom; and role familiarisation at Aldergrove. After demonstrating acceptable scores in practical air-to-air firing, the Manby course was deemed to be sufficient to entitle them to wear an ‘AG’ badge.
The first of these men began to fly operationally in the late spring of 1943. After the first five courses had passed through the system, the requirement for formal gunnery training was dropped, leaving later, and what soon became the majority of, flying ‘Met men’ without an ‘AG’ badge. Needless to say, this caused some discontent and permission was sought for them to wear some other appropriate emblem, one early suggestion being the, now defunct, flying ‘O’.14 The Director of the Meteorological Office, Sir Nelson Johnson, raised this matter several times but the war in Europe was almost over before his request was granted.
Those in favour of awarding a badge, notably the AOCinC Coastal Command, Air Chf Mshl Douglas, contended that flying meteorologists were self-evidently air crew. Others, most critically AMP, Air Mshl Sutton, whose department had ultimate responsibility for the administration of such matters, considered that they were essentially ground personnel who needed to fly on occasion. Sutton’s argument had some substance because the bulk of meteorologists, the NCOs, were paid at Trade Group II rates plus a shilling-a-day crew pay, rather than receiving a consolidated air crew rate. There was something of an anomaly here, however, in that, because they were commissioned into the GD Branch, the handful of officers involved did have full air crew status, albeit badgeless. Sutton had a second reason for withholding his approval in that the award of any air crew badge was conditional upon completion of a suitably demanding course of flying training and, in his opinion, the relatively brief indoctrination provided for meteorologists did not measure up to this yardstick. Furthermore, since they could not be regarded as being qualified in any of the other recognised air crew trades, it was not appropriate to invoke AMO A.89/1942 (see Note 2 to Chapter 23).15
The debate over the award of a badge for ‘Met men’ dragged on until the autumn of 1944 when Sutton neatly side-stepped the issue by referring the whole badge question to the recently established Committee on the Composition of Air Crew (see page 271). Since this committee was chaired by Douglas, the outcome was fairly predictable. In April 1945 the ‘new’ air crew category of the meteorological air observer (MAO) was formally, albeit belatedly, recognised. This was accompanied by the introduction of an ‘AG’-pattern badge featuring the letter ‘M’ within the laurel wreath.16
The WOp(air)’s station in a Lancaster. The upper, large, square-fronted unit, studded with gnarly knobs, is the T1154 MF/HF radio transmitter; the oblong unit beneath it, with a semi-circular tuning dial, is the corresponding R1155 receiver. The Morse key is on the desk at bottom right. The circular screen at bottom left is the Fishpond display tapped from the H2S scanner.
Being members of the GD Branch, officers already serving as meteorological air observers were entitled to wear their badges immediately, as were airmen as soon as they had been formally remustered as air crew. New recruits to this, still very small, specialist community could put up their badges on completion of a role-specific navigation course at an (O)AFU.
Recruiting of meteorological air observers ceased in June 1945. Since their introduction, thirty-four officers and 190 airmen had been trained for airborne meteorological duties. Nineteen of these, mostly unbadged, aviators had been killed on active service. ‘Mostly’ unbadged, because, as with flight engineers, once it was known that a dedicated badge was likely to be introduced, some ‘Met men’ reportedly took matters into their own hands and made appropriate modifications to a navigator’s ‘N’ badge.17
1943-45. Changes within the fraternity of Wireless Operators and Air Gunners.
In the air force of the inter-war years, the terms air gunner and wireless operator had become almost synonymous. The introduction of increasingly sophisticated equipment during WW II had demanded a much higher degree of technical expertise and this had led to a polarisation within what had once been a joint trade. By 1942 six subtly different categories and sub-categories had been defined – AG, WOM/AG, WOp/AG Grades I and II, AG/FM(A) and AG/FM(E) – and this evolutionary process was not yet complete. In Bomber Command, for instance, turrets were being increasingly manned by gunners who had little need for expertise in handling a wireless set. Conversely, the growth of Transport Command meant that the RAF was operating large numbers of aeroplanes which carried long-range communications equipment but lacked any armament at all. It was becoming clear that the traditional WOp/AGs were over-qualified so that, wherever they were employed, half of their skills tended to be superfluous. Once this anomaly had been recognised the long-standing dual-qualified trade was abolished.18
With effect from 9 November 1943, all existing WOp/AGs were remustered to the new trade of wireless operator (air) [WOp(air)] accompanied by the grading system which had been imposed upon their predecessors (see page 197). Thereafter their primary responsibilities were to be confined to wireless and visual signalling. Depending upon their specific assignments, however, provision was made for them to continue to act as gunners if and when required. Thus, while all new recruits to the trade would initially be trained only in communications techniques, they remained liable for additional training in gunnery if this was a requirement of their subsequent employment.
Following this restructuring of the category, the responsibilities of WOps(air) assigned to Transport Command were largely confined to communications, while those posted to Coastal Command were still likely to be additionally employed as gunners and/or as ASV radar operators. The emerging discipline of electronic warfare meant that Bomber Command’s WOps(air) also had a broad range of duties. Leaving aside the specialists who operated the jammers in No 100 Gp’s dedicated Radio Counter Measures (RCM) aircraft, the WOp(air) in a Main Force bomber became responsible for dispensing ‘Window’ and monitoring ‘Monica’ and ‘Fishpond’.19
From the above it will have become clear that there was a good deal of sub-specialisation within the overall trade of the WOp(air). This eventually led to the application of a series of suffixes (see Figure 47). These, while obviously intended to show the degree of expertise possessed by an individual, were aids to the personnel staffs responsible for ensuring that the right men were posted to the appropriate jobs as much as professional distinctions.
Although the post-1943 WOps(air) and WOMs(air) were not required to be air gunners, if they flew with Coastal Command in, for instance, as here Catalinas, as most of the latter did, they still needed to be additionally qualified in aerial gunnery.
Fig 47. Annotations to indicate the skills possessed by individual WOps(air).
Prior to this, all wireless operators had undergone a formal gunnery course which had entitled them to wear the ‘AG’ badge and those who were already qualified continued to do so. On the other hand, a WOp(air) graduating under the new arrangements would not automatically be awarded a gunners badge, which left him without any kind of air crew emblem. There was clearly a need for yet another badge to distinguish the new category. Introduced in January 1944, it comprised a standard pattern single-wing with the letter ‘S’ within the laurel wreath.20 The ‘S’ stood for signals, although it was to be more than a year before this would be reflected in the official title of the wearer.21
The peculiar requirements of Coastal Command were to lead to yet another recategorisation of signals personnel. Ever since air crew categories had been redefined in 1942 it had been accepted that airmen of certain technical trades who were qualified as gunners would be entitled to wear the ‘AG’ badge (see Figure 32 on page 221). One of these was the WOM/AG but, as with WOp/AGs, experience had shown that, contrary to expectations, WOM/AGs were rarely called upon to fire guns in anger.
Furthermore, it was anticipated that the introduction of more complex electronic devices would make increasing demands on the technical skills of the WOM/AG who was expected to be the only man capable of carrying out running repairs on such equipment. The situation was rationalised with effect from 13 March 1944 when the category of WOM/AG was replaced by that of the wireless operator mechanic (air) [WOM(air)], although this change was effected in arrears, as it was not publicised until the following September.22
In essence these men needed to be as handy with a Morse key as they were with a soldering iron.23 Like his WOp(air) colleague, a WOM(air) was to wear the recently introduced ‘S’ badge in place of the old ‘AG’ which was now awarded only to (and to be worn only by24) ‘straight’ air gunners. In practice, however, WOMs(air) continued to be employed almost exclusively by Coastal Command (and its overseas equivalents) whose larger aircraft tended to have more gun positions than professional gunners. To man, for instance, the waist gun positions of Liberators and Catalinas therefore, it continued to be necessary to train other crew members to act as emergency gunners when necessary. As a result, although gunnery skills were not listed among the essential attributes of a WOM(air) most, if not all, of them continued to be formally trained as gunners.
These changes had effectively resulted in communicators being completely divorced from gunners, the decree absolute having been marked by the introduction of the ‘S’ badge. Nevertheless, subsequent cohabitation was commonplace, especially within Coastal Command where ‘signallers’ were still required to function as gunners on occasion.25
1944. The Flight Engineer replaces the Air Bomber in the role of pilot’s assistant.
With the passage of time it became apparent that the 1942 decision, to use air bombers as pilot’s assistants, had been ill-judged. This was, in part, because some air bombers had turned out to be rather less capable than had been expected, but it was also felt that the air bomber had probably been given too many strings to his bow and that the amount of time he was obliged to devote to studying airmanship and practising in the Link Trainer would have been better spent on navigation and bomb-aiming. But the most telling argument was that there had been ‘hardly any authenticated cases of an Air Bomber being able to bring an aircraft back after the Pilot has been incapacitated.’26 All of these points were raised in a formal Bomber Command submission of May 1944, recommending a change of policy.27
Having previously canvassed the opinions of its subordinate Group HQs, Bomber Command had concluded that, although it appeared most unlikely that he would ever have to take the controls ‘in anger’, it was still considered highly desirable, for morale purposes, to have a second crew member capable of flying the aeroplane in an emergency. The consensus of opinion was that flight engineers were the most suitable choice. Since experience with the Lancaster (where the flight engineer had always acted as pilot’s assistant) had demonstrated that they could certainly do the job, Bomber Command recommended that all pilot’s assistants should be flight engineers, rather than air bombers. The Air Ministry agreed to this change in June.28
In the light of this development, it is perhaps worth recording that the flight engineer of 1944 was held in much higher esteem than his predecessor of 1941 had been. As previously noted, the Service had been very slow to introduce them in the first place and, even when it had, it had been just as slow to accept that flight engineers really were air crew and that they needed to be recognised as such (see pages 196 & 212). It had taken all of three years for flight engineers to gain the degree of respect to which they should always have been entitled but their true value had finally been accepted by mid-1944. This was particularly true within No 8 Gp where, as one veteran, J Norman Ashton, recalls, his potential was being very fully exploited:29
‘The flight engineer was certainly regarded by the PFF as a very versatile member of the crew: he was expected to be a first-class engineer; have the ability to pilot the aircraft in an emergency; be capable of manning any of the gun turrets; act as bomb-aimer in certain crews; be able to identify stars and constellations; learn to use the sextant and be able to take reliable ‘shots’ with that instrument!’
1944-45. The Employment of Pilots as Flight Engineers.
By the summer of 1944 confidence in a successful conclusion of the war against Germany was such that increasingly serious consideration was being given to the prosecution of ‘Phase II’ against Japan. Planning for the deployment of a force of Lancasters envisaged that, in order to cope with the very long range sorties that would be required in the Pacific theatre, there would be some advantage in a crew’s having two pilots, rather than a pilot and a flight engineer. To prepare for this it would be necessary to cross-train selected pilots as flight engineers and, pending the deployment of what would become Tiger Force, to employ them within Bomber Command. These men were to be drawn at weekly intervals, in batches of approximately sixty, from the substantial pool of recent EATS graduates currently held on the books of No 7 PRC at Harrogate.30
As originally conceived, the training was expected to comprise six weeks at No 4 SofTT at St Athan, followed by six at a Heavy Conversion Unit and two or three at a Lancaster Finishing School. It was made very clear that these men would retain their status and pay as pilots and that, on completion of their tour, they would be given appropriate refresher training prior to posting as a first pilot/captain, although not necessarily on bombers. It was appreciated that the prospect of being misemployed as a flight engineer might not appeal to some pilots and, in an attempt to sweeten the pill, it was pointed out that the likely alternative would be a prolonged wait for an appointment as a pilot and that the additional technical expertise could well prove to have considerable value in the long-term.31
In the event, the duration of the early courses at No 4 SofTT turned out to be seventeen weeks, broadly reflecting the content of the preliminary phase designed for direct entrant flight engineers (see Figure 45 on page 252). In order to accommodate the influx of pilots, there was a corresponding reduction in the throughput of the latter, although significant numbers were still required for Halifaxes and for Transport and Coastal Commands. There were adequate numbers within the pipeline to cope with this, however, and ex-ITW intakes into St Athan were suspended with effect from 6 September 1944 and not reinstated until 17 January 1945.32
If the Japanese war had gone on into 1946, Tiger Force would have been deployed to Okinawa, initially quipped with black and white Lancasters which would soon have been replaced by Lincolns, like this one, RF385 of No 5 7 Sqn. In a departure from previous practice, the role of the flight engineer in Tiger Force was to be filled by a pilot. (via R C Sturtivant)
The first group of fifty-six pilots arrived at St Athan on 30 August 1944. Thereafter intakes, usually numbering about the planned sixty students (although the largest was 142), continued at roughly weekly intervals until at least the winter of 1945. As had been anticipated, some of these pilots were disappointed at having been diverted into a secondary occupation as soon as they had gained their ‘wings’, but the only other option was to apply for voluntary withdrawal from the course. This was a very risky business, however, as prospective applicants were to be advised that ‘there can be no guarantee that air crew personnel who withdraw under these circumstances will be retained for nonair crew duties in the Royal Air Force.’33 Which could be interpreted as Air Ministry-speak for: ‘Anyone who chooses to withdraw, should be prepared to serve in the infantry or down the mines.’
From November 1944, RCAF pilots began to be included in the scheme and from January 1945 they were joined by others from the RAAF and a few from the RNZAF, at which point the RAF intake was suspended, albeit only briefly. The two-pilot crew policy for the projected Tiger Force (to which the RCAF, RAAF and RNZAF were all going to contribute) aside, the scheme had an additional attraction for the Commonwealth air forces. Because they did not train many of them themselves the, otherwise national, constitution of most of the crews in the Article XV heavy bomber squadrons was diluted by the presence of a British flight engineer. This was not ‘a problem’ per se, but the provision of dualqualified pilots would permit this gap to be filled.
Since the first batch of pilot/flight engineers did not emerge from St Athan until 12 January 1945, and they would then have had to complete the HCU/LFS sequence, it would have been mid-March, at the earliest, before any of them could have reached a squadron. Since the European war ended on 8 May, relatively few of them can have flown on operations before that date. By that time the length of the course at St Athan had been reduced to about nine weeks but, even so, because they entered training much later, the same will have been true of most of the RAAF and RCAF men.
By the end of the European war, steady progress was being made with reconstituting the crews of the squadrons earmarked for Tiger Force by substituting a second pilot for the flight engineer and with replacing the RAF flight engineers serving in RAAF and RCAF squadrons with dualqualified Australian and Canadian pilots. Within No 5 Gp, for instance, by mid-May some 130 crews had a second pilot/flight engineer.34 In the event the Japanese war ended before Tiger Force’s air echelon had begun to deploy and by the end of the year both of the RAAF and most of the RCAF heavy bomber squadrons had been disbanded. Nevertheless, the RAF persevered with the pilot-as-flight-engineer concept for a while and they were still to be found on Lincoln squadrons well into 1947. This writer has failed to establish exactly how many pilot/flight engineers were trained, but it will have been of the order of 3,000.35
Fig 48. Distribution of navigator sub-categories, 1943.
1942-44. The abolition of the Nav(BW) and the evolution of the Nav(R).
By late 1943 the employment pattern of the various subcategories of navigator was broadly as summarised at Figure 48. When the system had been devised in 1942 it had been envisaged that the navigator (BW) would fly in overseas-based bomber Mosquitos. In the event Mosquitos were not deployed abroad in the bomber (as distinct from fighter-bomber) role, most navigators (BW) eventually serving with Coastal Command where they flew Mosquitos on meteorological and photo reconnaissance duties. This requirement was too small to justify a dedicated category, however, and the navigator (BW) was declared obsolescent in January 1944.36
In the meantime, attention had been focused on the navigator (radio). The earliest batches of AI operators, the remustered wireless operators and/or air gunners and internally recruited ground tradesmen of 1940-41, had been largely self-taught in the art of getting the best out of a radar scope and, beyond brief familiarisation courses on later marks of AI, they had received little further professional training. Until the early summer of 1941 much the same was true of many of those who had followed, a direct entrant cadet earmarked as an AI operator going straight from ITW to No 3 Radio School for a three-week radar course at Prestwick and from there direct to a night fighter squadron, still as an AC2. After what amounted to a month’s probation, he was promoted to sergeant and authorised to wear his ‘RO’ badge.37
Experience had soon shown, however, that merely being able to cope with a radar set was not enough. In order to be able to function adequately, an observer (radio) also needed to have, at least some of, the skills of a navigator. Nevertheless, despite the fact that many of the first generation of AI operators had never attended any form of navigation course, they were all automatically recategorised as navigators (radio) in 1942.38
The first attempt to plug this gap had been made by running three-week courses, specifically tailored to meet the needs of AI operators, at No 2 School of Air Navigation at Cranage. No 1 AI Operators Course began on 12 May 1941, the last in the series ending on 30 August. In all some sixty AI operators, of whom only two had been commissioned, are recorded as having attended these courses.39
By this time it had been appreciated that if the observer (radio) was to be regarded as a professional aviator something really did need to be done about the makeshift training arrangements that had been put in place thus far. During the summer of 1941, therefore, a new and far more comprehensive training scheme had been devised. The anticipated sequence of courses was as Figure 49.40
Fig 49. The training sequence that observers (radio) were intended to follow with effect from September 1941.
While this obviously represented a significant improvement, and it was anticipated that 120 cadets per month would be flowing through the system by the end of the year, the sting in the tail was that the letter that had announced the introduction of the scheme had also acknowledged that it would not be ‘possible to implement this policy immediately’. This was, in part, because the EAOS would not open for business until October and partly because there was insufficient AONS capacity. Nevertheless, ‘as a temporary measure’, in September 1941 No 6 AONS (later AOS) at Staverton (where training of observers (W/T) for Coastal Command had just begun – see page 194) introduced a four-week course for observers (radio) and this was subsequently to be expanded as and when resources permitted. Over the next twelve months the duration of this course fluctuated between six and twelve weeks, involving anything between 20 and 75 hours of airborne time. In September 1942, by which time the trainees were prospective navigators (radio), the course was standardised at eight weeks, but this was still barely sufficient to justify the title of ‘navigator’.
This rather inadequate ad hoc approach to the training of ‘Nav(R)s’ persisted until the end of 1943 when it was decided, in effect, to treat radar operation as a post-graduate secondary skill. In future, therefore, all Nav(R)s were to be drawn from personnel who were already fully qualified as ‘proper’ navigators, only then would they be selected to attend the necessary technical and specialist courses to be taught how to handle AI equipment.41 By this time (in fact since the summer of 1942) primary responsibility for the provision of AI training had been transferred from Prestwick to No 62 OTU at Usworth, later Ouston.
1943. Improved promotion prospects for airmen air crew.
When airmen air crew had begun to appear in relatively large numbers shortly before the war it had been envisaged that very few of them would attain a rank higher than sergeant. Wartime conditions had made this an unrealistic constraint, however, and since 1941 there had been provision for substantial numbers of airmen to be overborne as flight sergeants and, in the case of pilots and observers, warrant officers (see page 191). By 1943 it had become necessary to review the situation again and it was agreed to remove the differential between what had become PNB and non-PNB categories.42 Thenceforth, all airmen air crew were eligible to become warrant officers.
In 1943 AI sets operating at much higher frequencies began to enter service. The short (centimetric) wavelengths per-mitted the use of a scanning aerial system to produce a relatively narrow beam. This focusing of the transmitted energy increased the operating range while minimising extraneous ground returns. This, in turn, alleviated the significant height limitation suffered by first-generation (metric) radars as a result of the inevitably broad-beamed polar diagrams produced by their fixed Yagi aerials. This is the navigator’s station in a late-model Mosquito, probably a Mk XXX. The two displays associated with the AI Mk X are hidden by the visor; the small circular white screen is the CRT for Perfectos II (which indicated the bearing of enemy IFF responses); the separate, lower, dark CRT is the display for a Monica tail-warning radar.
The downside to this improvement in conditions of service was that the time-served requirement was doubled from six months in the previous rank to a year. Needless to say, a degree of flexibility was permitted and, in deserving cases, the year could be reduced to nine months. Furthermore, any airman (in practice, always a pilot, but see below) appointed to captain a heavy aircraft could be immediately elevated to acting flight sergeant on the authority of his AOC and made up to acting warrant officer when certified as being efficient. After three months of satisfactory service he could be promoted to temporary warrant officer. Then again, special rules were introduced for the Pathfinder Force where, establishment vacancies permitting, an airman could be made up to acting flight sergeant on completing fifteen operational sorties and to acting warrant officer after another five. 43
Other minor concessions were being made in the specific cases of navigators (BW) and (W) whose training took so much longer than that of a straight ‘Nav’ as result of the additional bomb-aiming and/or signals content. It was agreed that all Nav(W)s should be given an antedate of seniority of twelve weeks on qualification and all Nav(BW)s eighteen weeks. Neither of these grants carried any entitlement to back pay but they did accelerate time promotion. The same antedates were given to serving airmen already qualified in these categories and, where appropriate, they became entitled to immediate promotion.44
1943. The abolition of the ‘VR’ badge.
While air crew were not the only people to wear the ‘VR’ badge, since its introduction was noted (on page 183), it is appropriate to record its demise. When it had been conceived in 1938/39 the ‘VR’ emblem had been intended to differentiate between pre-war volunteer reservists and the exregulars who were obliged to complete a reserve commitment. As such it had been intended to be a mark of distinction. Once the war had begun, however, all recruits were enlisted into the RAFVR, irrespective of whether they had volunteered or been conscripted. Thus, the original significance of the badge had been somewhat diluted. In fact, in the eyes of some, rather than being a badge of merit, it was now seen as a means of distinguishing the wartime ‘amateur’ from the pre-war professional regular.
Pointing out that this divisive influence was hardly conducive to a ‘feeling of unity within the Service’, AMP, Air Mshl Sutton, had concluded that ‘the VR badge has actually been harmful and may become so to an increasing degree.’45 In June 1943, therefore, all RAFVR officers were instructed to cease wearing the badge, leaving them all with neat holes in the lapels of their tunics.46
It was not considered necessary formally to prohibit the wearing of ‘VR’ emblems by airmen, however, because many of them did not do so anyway. Wartime scarcity of clothing fabrics had long since made it impossible to ensure that all airmen were issued with their badges. As a result, the wearing of the cloth ‘VR’ patch had effectively become optional for non-commissioned personnel. Rather than withdrawing permission for it to be worn, therefore, it sufficed for the badge to be declared obsolescent and it was simply allowed to fade away.47
Interestingly, the significance of the very similar ‘A’ badge, which was worn only by pre-war members of the Auxiliary Air Force, had not been diluted by wartime arrangements. The wearing of an ‘A’ still served to identify a particular group within the Air Force and its exclusivity gave it a certain cachet. While this contained an unfortunate hint of élitism, AMP considered that, on balance, the ‘A’ badge still exerted a positive influence on the esprit de corps of the dwindling number of men entitled to wear one. No steps were therefore taken to abolish it.
Non-pilots in relation to captaincy and other executive functions.
The first signs that observers might be given some wider, albeit relatively mundane, responsibilities began to emerge in 1941. It was a long-established RAF practice for every flying station to have a Duty Pilot. Along with an airman detailed as ‘look-out’, he represented a rudimentary combination of the latter day Operations Officer and Air Traffic Controller. His functions included: manning the Watch Office; maintaining a record of aircraft movements; sending arrival and departure messages as/if required; supervising the Duty Flight (a team of airmen detailed for, typically, seven days and available for such tasks as refuelling and servicing visiting aircraft and providing the nucleus of a salvage party and/or guard in the event of an accident); ensuring that all airfield signals and lighting were available and serviceable; obtaining and displaying up-to-date weather reports; ensuring that crash/rescue facilities were available and at an appropriate state of readiness, and so on. There was no particular rank associated with this task but it was often carried out by an NCO.
By the spring of 1941 there were significant numbers of sergeant pilots who, for a variety of reasons, but mostly medical, were unable to fly. Those who had been internally recruited, could simply revert to their original trade but the direct entrants were something of an embarrassment. In March a new Group I trade, that of the Permanent Duty Pilot, was created in order to exploit this resource by providing productive employment for qualified airmen pilots who had been declared permanently unfit for flying duties, along with selected trainees who had failed to complete the course but had accumulated more than 70 flying hours.48 This significantly reduced the requirement for current pilots to spend time on this ‘secondary’ duty and the net was widened in May when the terms were extended to embrace similarly redundant airman observers.49
This was certainly a positive development, in that it quite plainly implied that the Service had accepted that an observer could be trusted to exercise a degree of responsibility on the ground. There is no evidence to indicate that one provided the inspiration for the other but it is a fact that the first serious suggestion that an observer might also be able to exercise authority in the air came less than a month after the announcement that observers could be remustered as Permanent Duty Pilots.
Ever since the 1920s the majority of pilots had been officers and those who were not were at least sergeants. Since no one else who flew was likely to be ranked higher than corporal, the pilot had always automatically assumed the role of aircraft captain. Perhaps because the recent introduction of sergeant observers had raised the possibility of their eventually challenging this assumption, in January 1939 the existing regulations had been amended to make it quite clear that captaincies were still the exclusive preserve of pilots.50
Nevertheless, there were some who doubted the logic underpinning this exclusivity. The first person of any consequence to question the current arrangements was probably Air Cdre H G Crowe in June 1941.51 His contention was that, under certain circumstances, it might well be preferable for the observer to be in command of an aircraft. In seeking the views of commands, he went on to point out that, if the principle of observer captains were to be accepted, it could reasonably be argued that they should also be able to command a flight or squadron. It may be no coincidence, incidentally, that Crowe was an ex-back-seater, having flown as an observer with No 20 Sqn in 1917-18. It goes almost without saying that there was absolutely no support for his suggestion, although Coastal Command did admit that four of its Polish Air Force observers had been nominated for captaincies.
The question did not go away, however, and it was raised again in the autumn, this time by AOC 5 Gp, AVM John Slessor.52 Since it was primarily the efforts of the observer which enabled a bomber to find and hit a target, Slessor argued that he was clearly the key member of a crew. It followed that ‘the status of the observer should now be raised to one of equality with the pilot, that observers should not be debarred from being captains of aircraft, and that they should be put on an exactly equal footing with pilots for promotion and command.’ He went on to point out that it was quite normal for observers to act as captains of aircraft in the FAA and that naval observers frequently commanded squadrons and even entire air stations ashore.53 This was in marked contrast to RAF practice where the most senior observer one was likely to come across was a flight lieutenant Station Navigation Officer, plus, perhaps, one flying officer per flight on a squadron. This, it was pointed out, hardly reflected the vital importance of navigation.
Although Slessor’s, quite impassioned, plea on behalf of observers attracted only lukewarm support from AOCinC Bomber Command (see page 286), it is possible that news of his case for observers to be recognised as captains may have leaked out because, before the month was out, the Air Ministry had decided to seek the opinions of senior commanders again.54 The reaction was as unfavourable as it had been in June, a typical reply (from Air Chf Mshl Sir Philip Joubert at Coastal Command) being that ‘Observers who shew particular qualities of leadership during their first tour of duty should, on completion of same, be given a pilots training course.’55 Or, to put it another way, if an observer were good enough to captain an aeroplane then he jolly well ought to become a pilot. Similar responses were received from other veterans who presumably regarded 1917 as having been a golden age, when an observer still knew (or could be kept in) his place.
Nevertheless, despite the generally negative reaction, some senior officers were beginning to accept that, because it was so rational, it was difficult to dismiss the case for observers (and perhaps other non-pilots) to be entitled to fly as captains. But the rate of progress towards this end suggests that few of them were very enthusiastic about actually seeing this happen. The topic was formally aired again during April 1942 when it was noted that a few observer captains were already being employed by one of the groups of Bomber Command and it was again pointed out, this time by VCAS, Air Chf Mshl Sir Wilfrid Freeman, that this practice was commonplace within the FAA.56
Regulations which would have permitted observers to fly as captains were being circulated in draft form before the end of the month but it was July before anything was published.57 The new rules grudgingly allowed the possibility of non-pilot captains but only on the personal authority of an AOCinC, which was in itself a strong disincentive to anyone’s name actually being put forward. At much the same time the views of the operators were canvassed for a third time. Bomber and Coastal Commands continued to oppose the concept of observer captains. Army Co-operation and Fighter Commands offered some lukewarm support, which both could afford to do, because neither of them were major operators of multi-seat aircraft.
Undeterred by the general lack of enthusiasm, the Air Ministry encouraged commands to employ non-pilot captains on a trial basis and report back in due course.58 Since nothing had been heard by the autumn, commands were formally requested to submit their comments. There was little progress to report, beyond the fact that Army Cooperation Command had authorised four navigators on the staff of No 42 OTU to fly as captains.59 Bomber Command was later to adopt a similar practice at OTUs, albeit on a limited scale, but as yet no one had any operational experience on which to report.60 On the other hand, in a rather startling development, Bomber Command had appointed an air gunner, Wg Cdr A E Lowe, to command a squadron.61 While this was not a unique occurrence during WW II, the appointment of non-pilots to executive flying posts was extremely unusual.62
The appointment of nonpilots to executive positions was a rare occurrence during WW II, but it did happen. As an air gunner Wg Cdr A E Lowe MBE DFC (above) was OC 77 Sqn between December 1942 and October 1943. (Yorkshire Air Museum) Still proudly wearing his original ‘O’ badge, Wg Cdr W D G Watkins DSO DFC DFM (below) commanded No 15 Sqn as a navigator from 15 April 1944 until he was shot down on 16 November; the only member of his crew to survive, he spent the rest of the war as a PoW. (The Mildenhall Register)
By 1943 there was growing concern over the whole question of captaincy within the RAF and the Inspector General made it the subject of one of his investigations.63 In broad terms, Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt reported that there was considerable scope for improvement. He found: that policy differed between commands and between groups within commands; that training in leadership was poor; that individual attitudes towards captaincy were extremely confused, to the extent that many air crew questioned the need for captaincy at all; and that the whole situation was complicated by the frequent need to disregard the traditional rank structure, there being many instances of airmen pilots ‘commanding’ crews containing officers. Sir Edgar was particularly concerned that the long-term effects of the latter practice might be so corrosive as to permanently devalue the concept of the commission.
In the context of this book, it is necessary to consider only those aspects of Sir Edgar’s findings which relate specifically to non-pilots. He claimed to have begun his investigation ‘prejudiced in favour of the idea of navigator captains’, which was a considerable about-face, considering his disdain for the observers of 1939 (see page 177). He reported that he had come across many commissioned navigators ‘who would make or have made first class captains and compare favourably with any pilot in their qualifications for flight, squadron or higher command.’ In the light of this finding, he was very critical of a policy which routinely continued to confer captaincies on freshmen pilots, even when their crews contained an experienced second-tour navigator. Although Sir Edgar stated that there were no non-pilot captains in Coastal Command in early-1943, and only a few in Bomber Command, he had found that ‘the pilot’s prejudice seems largely to have disappeared in units where the non-pilot captain has proved to be successful in practice.’
Despite their apparent suitability, however, Sir Edgar eventually accepted ‘the weight of evidence of navigators themselves (which) convinced me that, when acting as such, the navigator is too busy to give the time and attention that he must be able to devote to the remainder of the crew if he is to fulfil his proper function as their captain and leader.’ He did not rule them out, however, and his report concluded that non-pilot captains were perfectly viable. He recommended that the associated regulations should be extensively rewritten to make this quite clear and to specify in much greater detail exactly what captaincy involved.64
In March 1944, after nearly two years of procrastination, the rules were finally amended to read that ‘in multi-seater aircraft one member of the crew will be appointed to act as captain of the aircraft. He may be of any air crew category’ (author’s italics). Furthermore, authority for such appointments was now vested in COs, rather than AOCinCs.65
Just two days after publication of the amended regulations Coastal Command nominated Flt Lt R A Irving to be its first operational navigator captain.66 Even so, while there was no longer any constraint on their appointment, non-pilot captains remained a rarity for the rest of WW II, although they did become more numerous within Coastal Command in the post-war RAF.67
There was one final round to the succession of wartime arguments over captaincy. This occurred early in 1945 in connection with the deliberations of the Douglas Committee (see page 271). By this time the debate was pretty sterile and nothing new emerged. As was often the case, the argument tended to focus on the airborne situation and ignore the wider picture. The opening rounds were fired by the Director of Air Tactics (DAT), who wrote a paper in which he maintained that the pilot was best fitted to decide on the acceptability of an aeroplane before a flight, the suitability of the weather for making that flight and, once airborne, how best to deal with the weather conditions (go under, go through or go back?). Keeping the best until last, his final argument was that the pilot was the only member of the crew who could decide whether to abandon the aircraft or try to keep it flying – thus resorting to the pilot’s ultimate fall-back position, which, in effect, reduces ‘captaincy’ to being Officer i/c Crashing.
The Director of Bomber Operations (DBOps) concurred but, taking a leaf from Sir Philip Joubert’s book, allowed that if any ‘non-pilot members of aircraft (sic) show or develop outstanding qualities of initiative and leadership’ – implying that they had somehow managed to demonstrate characteristics common, but exclusive, to all pilots – they should be given the opportunity to learn to fly and thus become captains. The Director of Navigation (DNav) did his duty by providing the requisite rebuttal but this evidently failed to impress DAT whose marginal pencilled comments included ‘Tripe’ and ‘Worse’.68
Before leaving the topic of captaincy, it should be recorded that the semi-autonomous Polish and French Air Forces, operating as integral elements of the wartime RAF, had little sympathy with the overdeveloped sensitivities of British pilots.69 In the case of the Poles, for instance, the captaincy of multi-seat aircraft had always been handled by the navigator/observer in the inter-war Polish Lotnictwo Wojskowe (Military Aviation) but when Polish squadrons were formed to operate with the RAF they complied with British regulations. In 1940-41, therefore, many senior observers were obliged to fly under the notional captaincy of junior pilots, although, once in the air, the formers’ authority was tacitly acknowledged. Full advantage was taken of the loophole presented by the revised regulations of 1942, the option of navigators flying as captains being widely exercised in Polish bomber, maritime and special duties squadrons for the remainder of the war.70
Much the same was true of the French. In both of the French-manned Halifax squadrons which operated with No 4 Gp, for instance, it was standard practice for the senior member of the crew to act as captain, regardless of his air crew category. Of the 128 constituted crews which flew with Nos 346 and 347 Sqns between June 1944 and the end of the war in Europe, fifty-six were captained by pilots, sixty-eight by navigators and four by air bombers. Of the thirty-four crews lost, to all causes, sixteen were commanded by pilots and eighteen by navigators. Since these figures reflect almost exactly the proportions of pilot and navigator captains, it rather suggests that the category of the man in charge had had very little bearing on the outcome of a variety of catastrophic situations.71
________________________
1 It is doubtful whether the FAA would ever have evinced much interest in adopting the new RAF-style terminology but, whether it had wanted to or not, the option would presumably have been denied because the title of ‘navigator’ was already spoken for within the RN where it was a long-established specialisation among seafaring officers.
2 ADM1/11844. Letter RNAS No 7100/945/36 dated 23 November 1941 from RAdm C Moody to the Secretary of the Admiralty.
3 Ibid. Minute dated 28 February 1942 on Naval Law file NL 21093/41.
4 This would have been the fruitless exercise conducted by AMP, Air Mshl P Babington, in April-May 1942 (see page 225).
5 ADM1/11844. Note on minute sheet of Naval Law file NL 21093/41.
6 AFO 4490 of 17 September 1942.
7 AFO 4491 of 17 September 1942.
8 AFO 4705 of 1 October 1942.
9 AFO 1358 of 22 May 1939 was a lengthy (seven-page) document laying down in some detail the basic arrangements for the administration of the new naval organisation which was referred to throughout as the Fleet Air Arm.
10 AFO 2112 of 22 May 1941 encouraged personnel to replace ‘Fleet Air Arm’ with ‘naval’, as in, for instance, ‘naval aircraft’ and ‘naval air training’, and reminded all concerned that it was an improper practice to use FAA as post-nominal letters to identify individuals. The point, of course, was that the FAA was not a separate Service, it was the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, but it was inevitable that many of its members would perceive themselves to be somewhat different from sailors – and that feeling was mutual. As one disdainful old sea-dog is said to have put it, naval aviators may have been in the Navy but they were not of the Navy.
The Admiralty evidently pressed the Air Ministry to support its campaign as RAF personnel were encouraged to observe the same conventions by AMO A.959/1941 of 13 November, this Order repeating much of the Navy’s exhortation verbatim.
11 AFO 5631 of 6 September 1946. As in 1941, the Air Ministry dutifully echoed this regulation in its AMO A.20/1947 of 9 January.
12 ZHC2/1023, Hansard for 20 May 1953.
13 AMO A.973/1942 of 10 September.
14 There was a precedent for this, in that, following a hasty navigation course, a Czech refugee meteorologist, Flt Lt E B Kraus, had been authorised to wear an observers wing in 1941, making him the first ‘flying Met Man’. It is believed, however, that this remained a unique case.
15 AIR2/5837. These arguments were set forth in a letter from AMP to AOCinC Coastal Command dated 4 November 1944.
16 AMO A.409/1945 of 26 April. The ‘M’ badge had been formally approved by HM King George VI when he endorsed King’s Order 562 on 3 April 1945 (AIR30/277).
17 The practice of wearing ‘home made’ ‘M’ badges has been attested to by at least two ex-meteorological air observers, P Rackliff, in conversation with the author, and J Tindale, in a letter published in the spring 1999 edition of Intercom. There was an inevitability about this because, although an ‘M’ badge had been authorised in April 1945, it took another three months for them to be manufactured. In practical terms, therefore, the ‘M’ badge was not actually introduced until the availability of stocks was announced by AMO N.800/1945 of 19 July.
18 AMO A.1242/1943 dated 2 December, the details of which were amplified by AMO A.244/1944 dated 23 March.
19 ‘Monica’ was an active radar employed in 1943-44. Intended to provide warning of an approaching fighter, it was prone to giving false alarms triggered by other bombers in the stream and, worse, its transmissions also provided an excellent homing beacon for enemy fighters. ‘Fishpond’ was a secondary function of H2S which, by filtering out all ground returns (by excluding any reflected signals taking longer to return than the elapsed time for a pulse to travel from the transmitter to the surface and back), made it possible to detect and display any target at a lesser range. In theory, this facility should have revealed any aircraft flying below the bomber within a hemisphere having a radius equivalent to the aircraft’s height above the ground, which would be of the order of three miles. The operator’s task was to monitor the display and interpret the likely intentions of any responses (which would include other bombers in the stream as well as enemy night fighters) from the way in which they behaved. The indicator unit was installed at the wireless operator’s station. The downside was that ‘Fishpond’, like ‘Monica’, required the bomber to transmit, thus advertising its presence and assisting the enemy in finding its location.
Very similar to ‘Fishpond’, ‘Fishpool’ was a modification to the postwar H2S Mk 9 intended to assist a V-bomber rendezvousing with a tanker.
20 AMO A.3/1944 of 6 January. Apart from introducing the ‘S’ badge, this Order noted that the ‘O’, ‘RO’, ‘AG’, ‘N’, ‘B’ and ‘E’ badges were all still current (although the first two of these were no longer being awarded).
21 AIR30/275. Although the wearing of the ‘S’ badge was not authorised until as late as January 1944 its introduction had been approved three months earlier, on 5 October 1943 when HM King George VI had signed King’s Order 521. In practical terms, however, the ‘S’ badge was not really introduced until its availability from Stores (it was Stores Ref 22H/733) was announced by AMO N.161/1944 of 24 February.
22 AMO A.916/1944 of 21 September.
23 It is some indication of the core skills required of the WOM(air) that these men were to be drawn from volunteers from the following trades: wireless operators, wireless operators (air), wireless and electrical mechanics, wireless mechanics and wireless operator mechanics. This list also conveys some impression of the confusing complexity which had developed within the overall trade structure by 1944. There had been two main reasons for this. First, the increasing complexity of equipment, which encouraged an increased degree of specialisation, and secondly, the need for economy. The latter consideration was more to do with time than money. It was not sensible to invest two or three years in producing multiskilled, apprentice-quality tradesmen in wartime, especially as most of them were in uniform only ‘for the duration’ (although, in point of fact, and in marked contrast to the suspension of the Cranwell cadet scheme, apprentices continued to be trained at Halton throughout the war). It was far more practical to provide the majority of airmen with sufficient training to enable them to function productively, as quickly as possible, in a relatively narrow field and then to remuster them to progressively higher qualified trades as and when their expertise increased through experience and post-graduate instruction, their progress being validated by examinations administered by the Central Trade Test Board. The inevitable result of this pragmatic approach had been a proliferation of trades; the fifty which had sufficed at the beginning of the war had become 235 by VJ-Day.
24 A month after the ‘S’ badge had been introduced (see Note 20), AMO A3/1944 was amended to state, yet again, that air crew were to wear only the badge of the category in which they were presently mustered or listed. For WOps(Air) and WOMs(Air) that badge was the new ‘S’ but, despite this oft-repeated edict, some of the gunner-qualified older hands reportedly continued to wear the ‘AG’s to which they had become attached.
25 Note that, since they declined to follow the RAF’s lead over the introduction of WOps(air) and WOMs(Air), the RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF did not adopt the ‘S’ badge during WW II, all of these air forces continuing to employ WOp/AGs.
26 Apart from the handful of occasions on which a second pilot had recovered an aircraft (see Note 24 to Chapter 22), there had been some more recent incidents involving air bombers. On the night of 23/24 May 1943, for instance, the actions of Sgt Stuart Sloan of No 431 Sqn had been recognised by the award of a CGM. Their Wellington having been engaged by Flak over the Ruhr, the pilot and air gunner had baled out, but Sloan found that the aircraft was still controllable and he flew it back to England where he made a successful landing at Cranwell.
Three months later, on 13 August, under the supervision of his seriously, and ultimately fatally, wounded captain, another air bomber, FSgt Allan Larden, flew a crippled Stirling of No 218 Sqn from Italy to North Africa where he carried out a belly landing from a third approach to the airfield at Bône. The pilot, FSgt Arthur Aaron, was decorated with a posthumous VC, Larden with the CGM.
While very rare, such incidents do continue to occur, even in peacetime. The most recent of which this writer is aware took place in 2006 when the captain of a Dominie was taken ill during a navigation training exercise. Flt Lt D M Chadderton, a navigator flying in the right hand seat as pilot’s assistant, took control of the aircraft and diverted to Newcastle Airport where he carried out a successful landing.
27 AIR2/2662. Bomber Command letter BC/S20173/Trg dated 21 May 1944.
28 Ibid. Air Ministry letter S.91149/TO1 dated 23 June 1944.
29 J Norman Ashton, op cit, p88.
30 AIR2/8239. Air Ministry letter S.79727/DTF dated 24 August 1944..
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid. Despite, what amounted to, a four-month moratorium on intakes into flight engineer training, Air Ministry memo A.540971/43/M.3 dated 13 January 1945, noted that there were at that time 270 flight engineer cadets currently engaged on the preliminary course and a further 1,180 who, having completed it, were on hold awaiting the applied/type-training phase, plus a backlog of 834 ex-ITW cadets who were available to be called forward to St Athan.
33 Ibid. Air Ministry letter S.102984/DTF dated 2 October 1944.
34 AIR14/895. Annex A to letter 5G/101/88/Air dated 16 May 1945 from AOC 5 Gp, AVM H A Constantine, advising Force Commander Tiger Force, AM Sir Hugh Lloyd, on crew composition.
35 AIR29/737. Beginning in August 1944, No 4 SofTT’s ORB records the numbers of pilots embarking on each course. This practice is discontinued after March 1945 but by that time the total had already amounted to some 2,470 and, since it is known that intakes continued for several months, the final figure must have been significantly higher.
36 AMO A.42/1944 of 20 January.
37 For a first-hand account of the training undergone by an ab initio observer (radio) in mid-1941, see Sqn Ldr Lewis Brandon’s Night Flyer (1961).
38 Writing of a visit to No 85 Sqn in the summer of 1944, ‘Jimmy’ Rawnsley (op cit), a pre-war airman air gunner who had been ‘retreaded’ as an AI operator, describes meeting a colleague who was ‘like myself, one of the old timers who had never done a full navigation course.’
39 AIR29/607. No 2 SAN’s ORB records that the three-week AI Operator Courses were scheduled with a one-week overlap, No 2 Course starting when No 1 still had a week to run, and so on. The curious thing is that while the start and end dates of Nos 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 Courses are noted, there is no reference to No 4 Course. Furthermore, the dates noted for No 5 and 6 Courses are those that one would have expected to relate to No 4 and 5. This suggests a clerical error and, despite the numbering noted in the ORB, that there had actually been only five courses, not six.
40 AIR2/8119. Air Ministry letter S.73754/DDTNav dated 26 August 1941.
41 AMO A.1241/1943 of 2 December.
42 AIR2/8348. The rationale behind the revision of policy with respect to promotion was explained in Air Ministry letter S.73210/11 (S. 10) dated 19 January 1943 to T Padmore of HM Treasury in which F.2, R C Richards, sought sanction for the financial implications of these changes.
43 AMO A.426/1943 of 13 May.
44 AMO A.497/1943 of 27 May.
45 AIR2/4021. Unreferenced letter dated 11 May 1943 from AMP to all AOCinCs at home and abroad and all AOCs at home, explaining the reasons behind the abolition of the ‘VR’ badge.
46 AMO A.572/1943 of 10 June.
47 AIR30/275. The abolition of the officer’s ‘VR’ badge, and the associated obsolescence of the corresponding airman’s patch, had been formally approved by HM King George VI when he endorsed King’s Order 509 on 7 May 1943.
48 AMO A.188/1941 of 20 March.
49 AMO A.365/1941 of 22 May.
50 AMO A.6/1939 of 12 January. This Order actually amplified the existing KR 806 which already dealt with the nomination of pilots as captains.
51 AIR2/8270. Air Ministry letter A.255910/41/Air Tactics dated 13 June 1941 from the Director of Air Tactics, Air Cdre Crowe, to AOCinCs Bomber, Coastal, Army Co-operation and Flying Training Commands.
52 AIR14/1941. HQ 5 Gp letter 5G/504/1/Org/DO dated 1 November 1941 from AVM J C Slessor to AOCinC Bomber Command, Air Mshl Sir Richard Peirse.
53 Authority for this had been provided as early as 1938 by CAFO 1914 (see p166).
54 AIR2/8270. Air Ministry letter A.255910/41/S.7A dated 25 November 1941.
55 Ibid. Coastal Command letter CC/S.7407/Trg dated 2 December 1941.
56 AIR6/73. Conclusions of Air Council Meeting 8(42) held on 28 April 1942.
57 AMO A.756/1942 of 23 July.
58 AIR2/8270. Air Ministry letter A.255910/41/S.7(a) dated 1 July 1942.
59 Ibid. Army Co-operation Command letter AC/3528/P2 dated 10 November 1942.
60 While never numerous, the employment of navigator captains at Bomber Command OTUs continued for the remainder of the war. For example, three who flew with No 30 OTU in 1943 (with the date of their certificates of competence) were Plt Off A J L Hickox (18 July), Fg Off G F Brantingham (18 July) and Flt Lt R Rook (14 August).
In addition to the above there is evidence to suggest that by late 1943 there were occasional instances of navigators flying as captain at squadron level. One example was Sqn Ldr J Vivian, Navigation Leader on No 57 Sqn, who is said to have acted as captain whenever he flew with a crew on an operational sortie, although the squadron’s ORB contains no specific indication that this was the case. On the other hand, according to his autobiography, Flying, Farming and Politics (2004), Flt Lt George Mackie, an erstwhile observer who evolved into a Nav(B) (while declining to change his badge), flew several Stirling sorties as captain while serving with No 149 Sqn as early as the winter of 1942-43 and a further twenty while flying in Lancasters of No 115 Sqn between October 1943 and May 1944 (these being plainly recorded as such in the ORB), latterly, incidentally, as a Flight Commander in the rank of squadron leader.
61 Appointed to command No 77 Sqn with effect from 10 December 1942, just as the squadron was completing its conversion from Whitleys to Halifaxes, Wg Cdr A E Lowe remained in post until 12 October 1943.
62 Another air gunner who exercised executive authority was Sqn Ldr C A Maton who commanded a flight of No 502 Sqn from September 1943 to May 1944 when he was promoted to wing commander and took over as CO, remaining in post until October when his aircraft was forced to land in Sweden. Wg Cdr L H Kay was yet another air gunner CO. Appointed to command No 149 Sqn in January 1945 he was in post only briefly, as he was killed on operations on the night of 2/3 February; evidently flying as a supernumerary eighth crew member, he was listed in the ORB as ‘second pilot’.
Examples of navigators filling executive appointments included Wg Cdr AGS Cousens who commanded No 115 Sqn between July and September 1942, Wg Cdr W D G Watkins, OC 15 Sqn in 1944, and Wg Cdr A C Dowden, OC 10 Sqn in 1945. Wg Cdr R C Alabaster, Sqn Ldr C B J Porter, Sqn Ldr J E Oram, Sqn Ldr G Y Mackie, Sqn Ldr N L Shove and Wg Cdr W M Mason were Flight Commanders with Nos 97 and 51 Sqns in 1943, Nos 40 and 115 Sqns in 1944 and Nos 76 and 97 Sqns in 1945, respectively. Note that, as in WW I, ranks were often held on an acting basis and that people tended to be ranked one notch up in the Pathfinder Force, hence Alabaster and Mason being wing commanders. Interestingly, Alabaster later qualified as a pilot and, after a spell flying Lancasters with No 582 Sqn, he switched to Mosquitos and commanded No 608 Sqn in 1945.
63 AIR14/1012. Inspector General’s Report No 277, IG/974 dated 6 March 1943.
64 Ibid. Sir Edgar was very concerned that the failure to recognise the need for captaincy, which was widespread throughout the Service, obscured the potential value of the function of the captain and resulted in the majority of them having little idea of their responsibilities and thus exerting little authority. With the aim of raising the status of captains he convened a meeting of very senior officers, including a number of operational AOCinCs, on 25 August 1943. Although they took almost a year to materialise, there were two obvious consequences of this meeting. First, a pamphlet, with the self-explanatory title of The Aircraft Captain, was produced, its availability being announced by AMO N.673/1944 of 29 June (although the content of this document had already been published in the December 1943 edition of Tee Emm). Secondly, it was decided that captains of aircraft of Bomber and Coastal Commands should wear a suitable brassard. Authorised by Air Ministry letter S.100641/P.1 of 30 June 1944, this armlet was actually introduced by AMO N.861/1944 of 24 August; it was to be of ‘blue-grey serge, with a centre section of light blue cloth bearing the letter C in red surmounted by an eagle and crown of gilding metal.’ The brassard proved to be unpopular with air crews, many of whom declined to wear it, and by November both operational commands were already requesting that it be withdrawn. This was not formally approved until as late as 5 November 1945 (by Air Ministry letter S.94096/E.13D) by which time the armlet had already virtually disappeared.
65 KR 806, which dealt with aircraft captaincy, was extensively amended by the publication of AMO A.252/1944 of 23 March.
66 Flt Lt Irving had previously been decorated with a DFC and Bar while flying in Beaufighters of No 236 Sqn in the maritime strike role. Having subsequently spent some time on the staff of HQ 16 Gp, he was posted to No 111 OTU at Nassau (Bahamas) for a Liberator conversion course which began on 25 March 1944. Returning to the UK in July, he and his crew completed a maritime patrol course with No 1674 HCU at Aldergrove before joining No 59 Sqn at Ballykelly on 15 August.
While Irving may have been the first navigator captain to be appointed under the new regulations, he was certainly not the first to command an operational crew. For instance, apart from Flt Lt G Y Mackie, to whom reference has already been made (see Note 59), there was Fg Off C A Burns, RCAF, a Nav(B) who captained one of No 220 Sqn’s Fortress crews in 1943-44. There were other isolated instances; for example, when Wg Cdr A G S Cousens flew on operations while commanding No 115 Sqn in July-September 1942 he did so as the designated captain. Since he had no crew of his own, however, and he elected not to displace any members of the crews that he chose to fly with, he actually accompanied them as a supernumerary member of the team. Much the same applied on No 97 Sqn where Wg Cdr R C Alabaster, OC C Flt, June-November 1943, was not assigned to a specific crew, preferring instead to fly as captain with relatively new arrivals.
Another slightly odd arrangement concerns Wg Cdr G B Read, OC 158 Sqn for the last few months of the European war, who is sometimes recorded as having been an air gunner. According to the Air Force List he was actually a pilot but, like Cousens, he appears to have elected not to have had a crew of his own, preferring to fly as a ‘guest’, perhaps to fill a gap in the crew roster. According to the squadron’s ORB, he does not appear to have done this very often but when he did fly he did so as rear gunner but specifically not as captain.
67 The first navigator to be appointed captain of a Shackleton crew was Flt Lt Bryn Lewis of No 120 Sqn in 1951.
68 AIR2/2662. Air Cdre T C Traill’s opening argument was presented in DAT paper S.40289 dated 7 February 1945. Air Cdre S O Bufton’s view was expressed in a minute dated 13 February on file BOps/2/2944. Air Cdre G I L Saye responded on 17 February via a minute on file DNav 813.
69 The precise status of the various free allied air forces serving with and within the RAF was complicated. For an appreciation, see Alan Brown’s Airmen in Exile (2000).
70 The author is indebted to the Official Historian of the Polish Air Force Association, J B Cynk, for this brief insight into Polish practice.
71 Free French practice was brought to this writer’s attention by Paul F Jacquemier, who flew with No 346 Sqn as a WOp(air). The figures have been extracted from Louis Bourgain’s Nuits de Feu sur l’Allemagne (1991).